Why ABC's Breitbart invite is a big deal

With the controversy still raging over ABC News's decision to include Andrew Breitbart as part of its election night coverage, it's worth explaining why this matters. ABC is, in effect, helping Breitbart rehabilitate himself.

Breitbart isn't just any run-of-the-mill conservative commentator. He's carved out a unique, and not unimportant, role for himself: His antics have had a direct impact on the conduct of our government, from the defunding of ACORN to the firing of Shirley Sherrod.

Indeed, Breitbart has contributed in very direct ways to the racialization of the conservative argument against Obama, and has helped amplify that argument.

Breitbart rose to prominence in his current role as conservative media critic through his release of deceptively edited ACORN "pimp" videos taken by associate James O'Keefe that helped bring the organization down. In a textbook example of working the ref, the "liberal media" swallowed Breitbart and O'Keefe's accusations whole, seemingly embarrassed that they hadn't taken the outlandish accusations conservatives had been directing at ACORN more seriously. By the time it was clear that the videos had been manipulated, the damaged had already been done -- but because the target was a liberal group focused on helping the poor, no one really cared all that much.

It was Breitbart's release of a tape of USDA Official Shirley Sherrod supposedly expressing racist sentiments to a gleeful NAACP audience that probably most hurt Breitbart's credibility, since it was revealed shortly afterwards that Sherrod was relaying a lesson about rejecting racism that she had learned despite having experienced the worst of Jim Crow segregation. Not much has changed in the intervening months -- Breitbart's recent release of an audio tape supposedly showing an Alaskan TV affiliate "conspiring" to disrupt Republican Senate Candidate Joe Miller's campaign is so questionable that even Breitbart's friends at FOX News are refusing to amplify his accusations the way they have in the past.

Time and time again, Breitbart has shown himself willing to manipulate information in order to make easily falsifiable claims, a pattern that has most news organizations displaying greater caution in adopting his "scoops."

ABC News' decision to host Breitbart isn't a matter of ideological balance, since there are conservative media critics just as partisan who aren't as prone to distorting the truth who might have been tapped.

In this context, ABC News' decision to host Breitbart, in any capacity, is a political act that extends credibility where none has been earned. It legitimizes a figure the mainstream press should have learned by now to be suspicious of. It sends the message to other media organizations that Breitbart is someone who can be trusted not to deliberately mislead an audience that is presumably coming to ABC News to be informed about matters of politics and public policy, when evidence suggests the opposite is true. Most importantly, it's the first step in Breitbart's journey back to mainstream legitimacy.

We've been here before of course. If there's one constant about the liberal media, it's that no amount of deliberate or inadvertent mendacity can discredit a conservative commentator. They're too useful as symbolic gestures of balance for media organizations eager to assuage conservative audiences, as though they would be satisfied with anything short of the wall-to-wall propaganda offered by Fox News.

I understand you libs are in denial about Obama going DOWN tomorrow; by all means, though, keep posting about Andrew Breitbart today. It's not like ABC invited you or Greg to provide on-air analysis (THAT! would be an outrage ; )

It makes no sense to impose a massive government health care program on the economy in the middle of an economic recession.

The response of Obama seems to be - that it is Bush's fault - so by Obama's logic that nonsense now makes sense? It doesn't work that way.

There has been such an obsession on the part of the liberals about THEIR AGENDA - that they refused to take care of the economy.

Are the liberals that disconnected from the American People - that THEIR agenda completely caused them to be blind to what is important to everyone else - the economy?

It is not like this issue of the economy has not been there the entire past two years.

Obama even went in front of Congress - and SLAMMED THE AMERICAN PEOPLE - by saying he "didn't come to Washington" to take care of the economy, he came to do other things, and he went on to talk about creating a massive government program which may or may not lead to a re-distribution of wealth.

In the upside down world of republican values, there is no sin so great that cannot be forgiven by republicans - the standards are only for others to abide by.

Breitbart is a hack, and after being proven so, he's even moreso the patron saint of the right. You see, they have selective morals - that are easily swayed by frothing up the hatred. They're useful idiots, and have they ever been useful lately. The chamber of commerce and all the businesses outsourcing their jobs will undoubtedly thank them for the unbridled support. I just wonder who they'll blame when they realize they've been played like lemmings. They've been played with the same scam for years...

Everyone agrees that ACORN needed to be exposed. Now all that remains is the question of whether the parts of ACORN which have re-incorporated under different names are continuing the same ABUSES which ACORN was doing.

Pretty simple -

________________________________

Breitbart also took down the idea that the NAACP resolution on racism had any relevance to our political system.

Clearly, the NAACP was wading into political matters - not a role for a non-profit organization. Also a role that is not appropriate for the NAACP.

The NAACP tried to re-ignite this issue again - by releasing a report two weeks ago which was immediately debunked as partisan and political -

Breitbart's actions blunted that report

__________________

Breitbart has made a fantastic contribution to America -

and allowed the country to clear out some of this crap the Obama people are throwing out which is nothing but a distraction from the economy and Obama's incompentence.

Obama's incompetence is a major issue - the democrats will suffer from it tomorrow - too bad the country has to suffer from it for the next two years.

"I understand you libs are in denial about Obama going DOWN tomorrow;"

@Greg Could you please clarify. Is Obama on the ballot in any state tomorrow? Did I miss one of your updates where perhaps Obama was added in some race. Perhaps I'm confused but I thought the next Presidential race was not until 2012.

Considering Obama's favorability numbers are now far better than Reagans and better than Clinton's as well...I'm not sure that that statement means...unless of course it was posted by an uninformed idiot.

George Stephanopoulos is the chief political correspondent for ABC News — the news division of the broadcast television network ABC — and a co-anchor of ABC News's morning news program, Good Morning America (GMA). He was previously the host of This Week, ABC News's Sunday morning news program. Mr. Stephanopoulos is the primary substitute anchor for ABC News's flagship news program, World News.

Prior to joining ABC News, Mr. Stephanopoulos was a senior political adviser to the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign of Bill Clinton and later became Clinton's COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR, also known as Assistant to the President for Communications, from 1993 to 1995.

Unless Jake is a huge liar...and I realize that is a mighty big IF...lmao

He is the biggest embarrassment that Stanford University has ever produced...even worse than Tiger Woods!!!LMAO

Remember all...Jake has consistently predicted that Christine O'Donnell would win her race tomorrow...I've challenged him on several occasions and even provided him a chance to back out of his moronic prediction....According to Jake D O'Donnell beats Coons tomorrow in De. :-)

The appropriate discussion is "Why aren't the people buying Obama's message," which was the topic of one thread.

A great deal of denial from the democrats, which is surprising, because they must have known.

It is a fundamental disconnect - the liberal agenda from the American People. Liberalism is not dead completely. However, the version with the gay agenda, amnesty and a massive health care program is deader than dead.

A zombie has more life.

It is important. Obama has never really had to get himself out of a mess he created. Obviously, when Obama has gotten himself into trouble previously, a bunch of false charges of racism always did the trick. That doesn't work this time. Hence, the anger at Breitbart who headed off that line of talk.

FEMALE REPORTER: That’s up to you because you have the experience but that’s what I would do...I’d wait until you see who
shows up because that indicates we already know something...
[Laughter
[INAUDIBLE]
FEMALE REPORTER: Child molesters...
MALE REPORTER: Oh yes...Joe Miller’s...uh...get a list of
people/campaign workers which one's the molester
[INAUDIBLE]
FEMALE VOICE: You know that of all the people that will show up
tonight, at least one of them will be a registered sex offender.
[Laughter]
MALE REPORTER: We need to find that one person...
[INAUDIBLE]
FEMALE REPORTER: The one thing we can do is ....we won’t
know....we won’t know but if there is any sort of chaos whatsoever
we can put out a twitter/facebook alert: saying what the... ‘Hey Joe
Miller punched at rally.’
FEMALE REPORTER: Kinda like Rand Paul...I like that.
[Laughter]
FEMALE REPORTER: That’s a good one.

At this point, the economy can not afford Obama's health care plan. It will only drag the economy down further. The only way to improve the economy is to get rid of this ridiculous health care plan, and then get some real economic policies in place.

At this point, the uncertainty around health care costs is causing too much of a drag on hiring to allow a proper economic recovery to take place.

@jd2: I just wish more republicans thought like you. The senate would have about 30 folks as committed to the constitution of rightwingnutistan and 70 sane people who want to actually more the country forward. The house would have a small crazy (republican) caucus, but it would be like a vestigial tail, visible but useless. You and Demint (better 30 "true conservatives" than a republican majority with moderates included) are the future! Make it so!

@12Bar When you first warned us of
STRF et al...Autumn BS today....quite honestly I thought you might be a bit over the top. You came in along with others from the wreckage that Jake the moron and STRF the sicko had made of "The Fix". There was all this talk of "banning"...this was something that was discussed only ONCE this past year before the sociopaths Jake and STRF invaded us from "The Fix". And you are correct 12Bar they bring nothing of intellectual consequence, they do not possess the ability of critical thinking..they are simply awash in their tsunami of HATE!!!
What a way to start Monday morning...with these hateful disrespectful losers. And before EITHER of you two morons respond to this post...understand that we could take a vote today and you both would be GONE!!!
Run your keyboards all you want but realize one thing...your hate is being reflected back at you...not because you are conservative...we have many excellent conservative posters here who are respected and carefully read. It's just YOU TWO...you are obnoxious sociopaths who get many of us so angry we have to go on these bitter blasts of our own. You two are truly disgusting excuses of humanity and it is YOU TWO who give the right and republicans a bad name!

Since earlier 12Bar I've not only seen you post very rationally and with a lot of cool information as well as philosophical discussion...but I realize I was wrong about you in the early days.

You are correct 12Bar...Joke and Autumn BS are true sociopaths...alas typical of right wingnustistan these days. I mean really does anybody here have any difficulty imagining Jake stomping on a "liberals" neck...or who knows what STRF/Autumn BS et all would do...this internet schizophrenic is clearly unhinged.
I'd be far more afraid to be a room with these two certifiable wackjobs than anybody dressed in Muslim garb. There can be literally only one of two explanations for STRF/Autumn BS...he is either a paid assassin out to wreck Greg's blog...or he is truly a deranged sociopath who literally needs psychiatric help!!!!!! No other explanation makes sense for his horrid behavior which has been deplored these last couple of months by the VAST MAJORITY of posters.

At least these two losers didn't have to get dressed up last night for Halloween...they could go as themselves...escaped asylum inmates!

I do not wish to have to add whatever grease or chrome or whatever to my computer here at work and then again at home. If Kevin has a program that works can't the WaPo simply incorporate it and give us all a simple handy way to block these two sociopaths who are literally bent on your destruction Greg.

GREG..you do understand that these two...dozen if you count STRFs' many sock puppets are out to destroy your blog. Jake admitted as much a month ago.

To be fair, we only registered as Republicans when we moved to Connecticut -- we have been registered with the American INDEPENDENT Party for over 40 years before that -- I am used to being the voice of one crying in the wilderness ; )

Try to see the comical side of these two nuts. They're totally into hate, but neither sees it. Then they bicker about whose hate agenda is the Hate Agenda of the Day.

This will pass. No blog can tolerate the disruption for long, particularly when they set their caps to get the blog owner discredited and fired, which is what I think is going on.

I don't know why these two don't start their own Hate Blog. Then they can't get booted off. They could post thousands of lines of Journolist, hatred against Obama, and bible verses to justify it all, without anyone complaining.

George Stephanopoulos is the chief political correspondent for ABC News — the news division of the broadcast television network ABC — and a co-anchor of ABC News's morning news program, Good Morning America (GMA). He was previously the host of This Week, ABC News's Sunday morning news program. Mr. Stephanopoulos is the primary substitute anchor for ABC News's flagship news program, World News.

Prior to joining ABC News, Mr. Stephanopoulos was a senior political adviser to the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign of Bill Clinton and later became Clinton's COMMUNICATION DIRECTOR, also known as Assistant to the President for Communications, from 1993 to 1995.

Need I say more?

-------

Apparently, you do. Diane Sawyer, anchor of ABC World News and former co-anchor of Good Morning America used to work in the Nixon and Ford administrations -- in the press office.

So what?

Former political operatives from both parties work for major news networks. As long as they are even handed, like both Sawyer and Stephanopoulos, who cares.

This is worth repeating ------------------
------------------------------------------
"I understand you libs are in denial about Obama going DOWN tomorrow;"

>>> HERE IS THE RESPONSE

@Greg Could you please clarify. Is Obama on the ballot in any state tomorrow? Did I miss one of your updates where perhaps Obama was added in some race. Perhaps I'm confused but I thought the next Presidential race was not until 2012.

Considering Obama's favorability numbers are now far better than Reagans and better than Clinton's as well...I'm not sure that that statement means...unless of course it was posted by an uninformed idiot.

What has happened to the paper that once broke the Watergate story? Once the Post kept Americans apprised of White House abuse; now, as the WH Newsletter, you simply have become its' protector hence columns like this. In any case, nobody watches ABC anyway.

I never claimed that Obama was on any ballot tomorrow, if that's what you are getting at. "Going down" has multiple meanings (just as "bails out" does ; )

On the previous thread, our gracious host has posted the following UPDATE, 10:46 a.m.:

One of the emails Breitbart posted does suggest that the town hall he was invited to participate in is supposed to be broadcast on the air, but ABC spokesman Schneider clarifies that this doesn't mean Breitbart was asked to appear:

"To be clear, the digital town hall may be excerpted during the broadcast. But the only people you'll be hearing from live on the air will be David Muir, the anchor, and Randi Zuckerberg of Facebook, who will share with viewers some of the insights of that digital town hall."

ROTFLMAO! JD, perhaps you should browse the archives before making such a blanket statement. If I had time, I am sure that I could prove the "not one" part of the statement to be of questionable veracity. Glass houses, black pots, etc. Just sayin'

...and I realize that these people really are terrified of black people. I mean, Black Liberation Theology...REALLY? And when, exactly, has Barack Obama leveled charges of "racism" against anybody? Did this happen in reality, or only in the twisted nightmares/wet dreams of small-minded bigots?

Of all the things to be scared of in this world, these halfwits are afraid of the big black bogeyman rising up and...doing what exactly? Providing healthcare to poor people? Oh...the horror...

We have too many important problems in this world to waste time obsessing over specious (and royally stupid) issues like long-form birth certificates, Black Liberation Theology, secret Muslim infiltration of the WH, or hysterical McCarthyite fear of Marxist commies.

Wise up and join us in solving real problems instead of wallowing in racism, hate and fear, wingnuts. You're currently bringing nothing of value to the table.

Our economy will be receiving a huge boost through the issuance of unemployment checks to out of work D politicians (per Nancy Pelosi). The NeoCom Statists will be biting the dust, a just reward to the arrogance of the elitist ruling class and their loyal dependents making fun of American citizens wishing to preserve their freedoms. If they can’t take away your freedom openly they will then take it by decimating your paycheck. That plan is already in progress.

To all of the desperate, small minded, misinformed people that continue to reference the journolist non-scandal ad nauseum:

...Give it a rest..grow up...move on ;-)...

Your constant shrill whining about colleagues who talk amongst themselves is pathetic given the fact that the list was disbanded months ago and totally hypocritical, given the numerous messaging meetings that republican pundits and "reporters" engage in (See Norquist, Grover) and the number of republican "analysts" and "experts" that regularly collect multi-thousand dollar speaking fees from conservative groups, who then write about those conservative groups and causes in glowing terms....

get a life...Enjoy your wins tomorrow...write witty posts about the end of Obama's presidency and the new glorious republican majority which given its history will make deficits skyrocket while giving huge tax breaks to the top 1% and who knows, invade an oil rich country, topple its government, and then watch helplessly as that country descends into 6 years of sectarian violence, ethnic (religious) cleansing, massive civilian casualties, and chaos, because they had no plan for the aftermath of the invasion...

Delight in the fact that the only policy proposals put out by republicans have been repudiated by the majority of the caucus (How many republicans want to be associated with the Ryan blueprint or even mention the Ryan plan while campaigning?) and that the only real substantive economic proposal republicans have is to go back to the 2008 Bush budget in 2008 (you know the one that he wrote right before the stock market and economy collapsed and began the largest recession in at least 30 years, if not 60).

We can all look forward to this new republican utopia with shock and awe..

What I find equally, if not more so, disturbing are the people who have no qualms that Breitbart ruined other people's reputations based on falsified, manipulated information.

My father, a staunch conservative, used to always tell me that the only thing we have in this world is our word. Because he kept true to his word, in business and his personal life, people trusted him. He built an extremely successful business on a handshake and his word -- both were considered as good as gold.

However, it should be of no consequence as to which political party one belongs to. When a person has been exposed, especially several times over, for engaging in deceptive and dishonest acts then that person cannot be trusted. Breitbart has lost all credibility. He has deliberately mislead his audiences, taken advantage of the people's trust and has shown time and again he is willing to deceive, lie, falsify, manipulate information and will even destroy innocent people's reputations and livelihoods just to sway public opinion. Those who accept and defend this type of behaviour are no better than he is.

One thing I can say with definite certainty, if my father were still alive today he would have condemned Breitbart's actions and those who condone his behaviour despite his own political leanings. It is shamefully disturbing more people care more about party affiliation than honesty and principled integrity.

I really appreciate this comment on Andrew Breitbart. I thought it was regrettable that Bill Maher invited him on his talk show because he has so little credibility, but it's shameful that ABC has anything to do with him at all. They must be trying to race Fox to the bottom.

I'm also really sorry that the comment threads for this blog have come to resemble Politico's level of commenting. I rarely post, but it's certainly tiresome scrolling past serial polluters like JakeD2 and Summerbreeze. I usually assume they're just really lonely folks who have to remind themselves that they lived another day by chattering, chattering away, hoping someone else notices, too.

But rather than waste time and effort scrolling past their spitballs looking for insightful responses, I'm just going to avoid reading the comments altogether. Too bad, as there are some smart, insightful people who post here.

Also, I read that ABC told Brietbart he would be required not to lie. No joke. You can be part of our program but you can't do your usual disinformation shtick. What were they thinking to include this clown in ANYTHING???

Doesn't it speak volumes about Brietbart's credibility that you have to sign him up with the agreement he won't lie??? Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life on this planet.

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